DR. CHALMERS
"Fervet immensasque ruit – Hor.
"His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun,
And dwells in heaven half the night"
Tennyson.
"He was net one man, he was a thousand men." – Sydney Smith.
When, towards the close of some long summer day, we come suddenly, and, as we think, before his time, upon the broad sun, "sinking down in his tranquillity" into the unclouded west; we cannot keep our eyes from the great spectacle; – and when he is gone, the shadow of him haunts our sight with the spectre of his brightness, which is dark when our eyes are open; luminous when they are shut: we see everywhere, – upon the spotless heaven, upon the distant mountains, upon the fields, and upon the road at our feet, – that dim, strange, changeful image; and if our eyes shut, to recover themselves, we still find in them, like a dying flame, or like a gleam in a dark place, the unmistakable phantom of the mighty orb that has set, – and were we to sit down, as we have often done, and try to record by pencil or by pen, our impression of that supreme hour, still would IT be there. We must have patience with our eye, it will not let the impression go, – that spot on which the radiant disc was impressed, is insensible to all other outward things, for a time: its best relief is, to let the eye wander vaguely over earth and sky, and repose itself on the mild shadowy distance.
So it is when a great and good and beloved man departs, sets – it may be suddenly – and to us who know not the times and the seasons, too soon. We gaze eagerly at his last hours, and when he is gone, never to rise again on our sight, we see his image wherever we go, and in whatsoever we are engaged, and if we try to record by words our wonder, our sorrow, and our affection, we cannot see to do it, for the "idea of his life" is for ever coming into our "study of imagination" – into all our thoughts, and we can do little else than let our mind, in a wise passiveness, hush itself to rest.
The sun returns – he knows his rising —
"To-morrow he repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky
but man lieth down, and riseth not again till the heavens are no more. Never again will he whose "Meditations" are now before us, lift up the light of his countenance upon us.
We need not say we look upon him as a great man, as a good man, as a beloved man —quis desiderio sit pudor tarn cari capitis? We cannot now go very curiously to work, to scrutinize the composition of his character, – we cannot take that large, free, genial nature to pieces, and weigh this and measure that, and sum up and pronounce; we are too near as yet to him, and to his loss, he is too dear to us to be so handled. "His death," to use the pathetic words of Hartley Coleridge, "is a recent sorrow; his image still lives in eyes that weep for him." The prevailing feeling is, – He is gone – "abiit adplures – he has gone over to the majority, he has joined the famous nations of the dead."
It is no small loss to the world, when one of its master spirits – one of its great lights – a king among the nations – leaves it. A sun is extinguished; a great attractive, regulating power is withdrawn. For though it be a common, it is also a natural thought, to compare a great man to the sun; it is in many respects significant. Like the sun, he rules his day, and he is "for a sign and for seasons," and for days and for years he enlightens, quickens, attracts, and leads after him his host – his generation.
To pursue our image. When the sun sets to us, he rises elsewhere – he goes on rejoicing, like a strong man, running his race. So does a great man: when he leaves us and our concerns – he rises elsewhere; and we may reasonably suppose that one who has in this world played a great part in its greatest histories – who has through a long life been pre-eminent for promoting the good of men and the glory of God – will be looked upon with keen interest, when he joins the company of the immortals. They must have heard of his fame; they may in their ways have seen and helped him already.
Every one must have trembled when reading that passage in Isaiah, in which Hell is described as moved to meet Lucifer at his coming: there is not in human language anything more sublime of conception, more exquisite in expression; it has on it the light of the terrible crystal. But may we not reverse the scene? May we not imagine, when a great and good man – a son of the morning – enters on his rest, that Heaven would move itself to meet him at his coming? that it would stir up its dead, even all the chief ones of the earth, and that the kings of the nations would arise each one from his throne to welcome their brother? that those who saw him would "narrowly consider him," and say, "Is this he who moved nations, enlightened and bettered his fellows, and whom the great Taskmaster welcomes with 'Well done!'"
We cannot help following him, whose loss we now mourn, into that region, and figuring to ourselves his great, childlike spirit, when that unspeakable scene bursts upon his view, when, as by some inward, instant sense, he is conscious of God – of the immediate presence of the All-seeing Unseen; when he beholds "His honourable, true, and only Son," face to face, enshrined in that "glorious form, that light unsufferable, and that far-beaming blaze of Majesty," that brightness of His glory, that express image of His person; when he is admitted into the goodly fellowship of the apostles – the glorious company of the prophets – the noble army of martyrs – the general assembly of just men – and beholds with his loving eyes the myriads of "little ones," outnumbering their elders as the dust of the stars with which the galaxy is filled exceeds in multitude the hosts of heaven.
What a change! death the gate of life – a second birth, in the twinkling of an eye: this moment, weak, fearful, in the amazement of death; the next, strong, joyful, – at rest, – all things new! To adopt his own words: all his life, up to the last, "knocking at a door not yet opened, with an earnest indefinite longing, – his very soul breaking for the longing, – drinking of water and thirsting again" – and then – suddenly and at once – a door opened into heaven, and the Master heard saying, "Come in, and come up hither!" drinking of the river of life, clear as crystal, of which if a man drink he will never thirst, – being tilled with all the fulness of God!
Dr. Chalmers was a ruler among men: this we know historically; this every man who came within his range felt at once. He was like Agamemnon, a native [Greek], and with all his homeliness of feature and deportment, and his perfect simplicity of expression, there was about him "that divinity that doth hedge a king." You felt a power, in him, and going from him, drawing you to him in spite of yourself. He was in this respect a solar man, he drew after him his own firmament of planets. They, like all free agents, had their centrifugal forces acting ever towards an independent, solitary course, but the centripetal also was there, and they moved with and around their imperial sun, – gracefully or not, willingly or not, as the case might be, but there was no breaking loose: they again, in their own spheres of power, might have their attendant moons, but all were bound to the great massive luminary in the midst.
There is to us a continual mystery in this power of one man over another. We find it acting everywhere, with the simplicity, the ceaselessness, the energy of gravitation; and we may be permitted to speak of this influence as obeying similar conditions; it is proportioned to bulk – for we hold to the notion of a bigness in souls as well as bodies – one soul differing from another in quantity and momentum as well as in quality and force, and its intensity increases by nearness. There is much in what Jonathan Edwards says of one spiritual essence having more of being than another, and in Dr. Chalmers's question, "Is he a man of wecht?"
But when we meet a solar man, of ample nature – soul, body, and spirit; when we find him from his earliest years moving among his fellows like a king, moving them whether they will or not – this feeling of mystery is deepened; and though we would not, like some men (who should know better), worship the creature and convert a hero into a god, we do feel more than in other cases the truth, that it is the inspiration of the Almighty which has given to that man understanding, and that all power, all energy, all light, come to him, from the First and the Last – the Living One. God comes to be regarded by us, in this instance, as He ought always to be, "the final centre of repose" – the source of all being, of all life – the Terminus ad quem and the Terminus a quo. And assuredly, as in the firmament that simple law of gravitation reigns supreme – making it indeed a kosmos – majestic, orderly, comely in its going – ruling, and binding not the less the fiery and nomadic comets, than the gentle, punctual moons – so certainly, and to us moral creatures to a degree transcendently more important, does the whole intelligent universe move around and move towards and in the Father of Lights.
It would be well if the world would, among the many other uses it makes of its great men, make more of this, – that they are manifestors of God – revealers of His will – vessels of His omnipotence – and are among the very chiefest of His ways and works.
As we have before said, there is a perpetual wonder in this power of one man over his fellows, especially when we meet with it in a great man. You see its operations constantly in history, and through it the Great Ruler has worked out many of His greatest and strangest acts. But however we may understand the accessory conditions by which the one man rules the many, and controls and fashions them to his purposes, and transforms them into his likeness – multiplying as it were himself – there remains at the bottom of it all a mystery – a reaction between body and soul that we cannot explain. Generally, however, we find accompanying its manifestation, a capacious understanding – a strong will – an emotional nature, quick, powerful, urgent, undeniable, in perpetual communication with the energetic will and the large resolute intellect – and a strong, hearty, capable body; a countenance and person expressive of this combination – the mind finding its way at once and in full force to the face, to the gesture, to every act of the body. He must have what is called a "presence," not that he must be great in size, beautiful, or strong; but he must be expressive and impressive – his outward man must communicate to the beholder at once and without fail, something of indwelling power, and he must be and act as one. You may in your mind analyse him into his several parts; but practically he acts in everything with his whole soul and his whole self; whatsoever his hand finds to do, he does it with his might. Luther, Moses, David, Mahomet, Cromwell – all verified these conditions.
And so did Dr. Chalmers. There was something about his whole air and manner, that disposed you at the very first to make way where he went – he held you before you were aware. That this depended fully as much upon the activity and the quantity – if we may so express ourselves – of his affections, upon that combined action of mind and body which we call temperament, and upon a straightforward, urgent will, as upon what is called the pure intellect, will be generally allowed; but with all this, he could not have been and done, what he was and did, had he not had an understanding, in vigour and in capacity, worthy of its great and ardent companions. It was large and free, mobile, and intense, rather than penetrative, judicial, clear, or fine, – so that in one sense he was more a man to make others act than think; but his own actings had always their origin in some fixed, central, inevitable proposition, as he would call it, and he began his onset with stating plainly, and with lucid calmness, what he held to be a great seminal truth; from this he passed at once, not into exposition, but into illustration and enforcement – into, if we may make a word overwhelming insistance. Something was to be done,' rather than explained.
There was no separating his thoughts and expressions from his person, and looks, and voice. How perfectly we can at this moment recall him! Thundering, flaming, lightening in the pulpit; teaching, indoctrinating, drawing after him his students in his lecture-room; sitting among other public men, the most unconscious, the most king-like of them all, with that broad leonine countenance, that beaming, liberal smile; or on the way out to his home, in his old-fashioned great-coat, with his throat muffled up, his big walking-stick moved outwards in an arc, its point fixed, its head circumferential, a sort of companion and playmate, with which, doubtless, he demolished legions of imaginary foes, errors, and stupidities in men and things, in Church and State. His great look, large chest, large head, his amplitude every way; his broad, simple, childlike, in-turned feet; his short, hurried, impatient step; his erect, royal air; his look of general good-will; his kindling up into a warm but vague benignity when one he did not recognise spoke to him; the addition, for it was not a change, of keen speciality to his hearty recognition; the twinkle of his eyes; the immediately saying something very personal to set all to rights, and then sending you off with some thought, some feeling, some remembrance, making your heart burn within you; his voice indescribable; his eye – that most peculiar feature – not vacant, but asleep – innocent, mild, and large; and his soul, its great inhabitant, not always at his window; but then, when he did awake, how close to you was that burning vehement soul! how it penetrated and overcame you! how mild, and affectionate, and genial its expression at his own fireside!
Of his portraits worth mentioning, there are Watson Gordon's, Ducan's – the Calotypes of Mr. Hill – Kenneth M'Leay's miniatures – the Daguerreotype, and Steell's bust. These are all good, and all give bits of him, some nearly the whole, but not one of them that [Greek], that fiery particle – that inspired look – that "diviner mind" —poco piu, or little more. Watson Gordon's is too much of the mere clergyman – is a pleasant likeness, and has the shape of his mouth, and the setting of his feet very good. Duncan's is a work of genius, and is the giant looking up, awakening, but not awakened – it is a very fine picture, Mr. Hill's Calotypes we like better than all the rest; because what in them is true, is absolutely so, and they have some delicate renderings which are all but beyond the power of any human artist; for though man's art is mighty, nature's is mightier. The one of the Doctor sitting with his grandson "Tommy" is to us the best; we have the true grandeur of his form – his bulk. M'Leay's is admirable – spirited – and has that look of shrewdness and vivacity and immediateness which he had when he was observing and speaking keenly; it is, moreover, a fine, manly bit of art. M'Leay is the Raeburn of miniature painters – he does a great deal with little. The Daguerreotype is, in its own way, excellent; it gives the externality of the man to perfection, but it is Dr. Chalmers at a standstill – his mind and feelings "pulled up" for the second that it was taken. Steell's is a noble bust – has a stern heroic expression and pathetic beauty about it, and from wanting colour and shadow and the eyes, it relies upon a certain simplicity and grandeur; – in this it completely succeeds – the mouth is handled with extraordinary subtlety and sweetness, and the hair hangs over that huge brow like a glorious cloud. We think this head of Dr. Chalmers the artist's greatest bust.
In reference to the assertion we have made as to bulk forming one primary element of a powerful mind, Dr. Chalmers used to say, when a man of activity and public mark was mentioned, "Has he wecht? he has promptitude – has he power? he has power – has he promptitude? and, moreover, has he a discerning spirit?"
These are great practical, universal truths. How few even of our greatest men have had all these three faculties large – fine, sound, and in "perfect diapason." Your men of promptitude, without power or judgment, are common and are useful. But they are apt to run wild, to get needlessly brisk, unpleasantly incessant. A weasel is good or bad as the case may be, – good against vermin – bad to meddle with; – but inspired weasels, weasels on a mission, are terrible indeed, mischievous and fell, and swiftness making up for want of momentum by inveteracy; "fierce as wild bulls, untamable as flies." Of such men we have now-a-days too many. Men are too much in the way of supposing that doing is being; that theology and excogiration, and fierce dogmatic assertion of what they consider truth, is godliness; that obedience is merely an occasional great act, and not a series of acts, issuing from a state, like the stream of water from its well.
"Action is transitory – a step – a blow,
The motion of a muscle – this way or that;
'Tis done – and in the after vacancy,
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed.
Suffering" (obedience, or being as opposed to doing) —
"Suffering is permanent, —
And has the nature of infinity."
Dr. Chalmers was a man of genius – he had his own way of thinking, and saying, and doing, and looking everything. Men have vexed themselves in vain to define what genius is; like every ultimate term we may describe it by giving its effects, we can hardly succeed in reaching its essence. Fortunately, though we know not what are its elements, we know it when we meet it; and in him, in every movement of his mind, in every gesture, we had its unmistakable tokens. Two of the ordinary accompaniments of genius – Enthusiasm and Simplicity – he had in rare measure.
He was an enthusiast in its true and good sense; he was "entheat," as if full of God, as the old poets called it. It was this ardour, this superabounding life, this immediateness of thought and action, idea and emotion, setting the whole man agoing at once – that gave a power and a charm to everything he did. To adopt the old division of the Hebrew Doctors, as given by Nathanael Culverwel, in his "Light of Nature: " In man we have – 1st, [Greek], the sensitive soul, that which lies nearest the body – the very blossom and flower of life; 2d, [Greek], animam rationis, sparkling and glittering with intellectuals, crowned with light; and 3d, [Greek], __impetum animi, motum mentis, the vigour and energy of the soul – its temper – the mover of the other two – the first being, as they said, resident in hepate – the second in cere-bro – the third in corde, where it presides over the issues of life, commands the circulation, and animates and sets the blood a-moving. The first and second are informative, explicative, they "take in and do" – the other "gives out." Now in Dr. Chalmers, the great ingredient was the [Greek] as indicating vis animo et vitae, – and in close fellowship with it, and ready for its service, was a large, capacious [Greek], and an energetic, sensuous, rapid [Greek]. Hence his energy, his contagious enthusiasm – this it was which gave the peculiar character to his religion, to his politics, to his personnel; everything he did was done heartily – if he desired heavenly blessings, he "panted" for them – "his soul broke for the longing." To give again the words of the spiritual and subtle Culverwel, "Religion (and indeed everything else) was no matter of indifferency to him. It was [Greek], a certain fiery thing, as Aristotle calls love; it required and it got, the very flower and vigour of the spirit – the strength and sinews of the soul – the prime and top of the affections – this is that grace, that panting grace – we know the name of it and that's all – 'tis called zeal – a flaming edge of the affection – the ruddy complexion of the soul." Closely connected with this temperament, and with a certain keen sensation of truth, rather than a perception of it, if we may so express ourselves, an intense consciousness of objective reality, – was his simple animating faith. He had faith in God – faith in human nature – faith, if we may say so, in his own instincts – in his ideas of men and things – in himself; and the result was, that unhesitating bearing up and steering right onward – "never bating one jot of heart or hope" so characteristic of him. He had "the substance of things hoped for." He had "the evidence of things not seen."
By his simplicity we do not mean the simplicity of the head – of that he had none; he was eminently shrewd and knowing – more so than many thought; but we refer to that quality of the heart and of the life, expressed by the words, "in simplicity a child." In his own words, from his Daily Readings, —
"When a child is filled with any strong emotion by a surprising event or intelligence, it runs to discharge it on others, impatient of their sympathy; and it marks, I fancy, the simplicity and greater naturalness of this period (Jacob's), that the grown up men and women ran to meet each other, giving way to their first impulses – even as children do."
His emotions were as lively as a child's, and he ran to discharge them. There was in all his ways a certain beautiful unconsciousness of self – an outgoing of the whole nature that we see in children, who are by learned men said to be long ignorant of the Ego – blessed in many respects in their ignorance! This same Ego, as it now exists, being perhaps part of "the fruit of that forbidden tree," that mere knowledge of good as well as of evil, which our great mother bought for us at such a price. In this meaning of the word, Dr. Chalmers, considering the size of his understanding – his personal eminence – his dealings with the world – his large sympathies – his scientific knowledge of mind and matter – his relish for the practical details, and for the spirit of public business – was quite singular for his simplicity; and taking this view of it, there was much that was plain and natural in his manner of thinking and acting, which otherwise was obscure and liable to be misunderstood. We cannot better explain what we mean than by giving a passage from Fénélon, which D'Alembert, in his Eloge, quotes as characteristic of that "sweet-souled" prelate. We give the passage entire, as it seems to us to contain a very beautiful, and by no means commonplace truth: —
"Fénélon," says D'Alembert, "a caractérisé lui-même en peu de mots cette simplicité qui le rendoit si cher à tous les cours. La simplicité est la droiture d'une ame qui s'interdit tout retour sur elle et sur ses actions – cette vertu est différente de la sincérité, et la surpasse. On voit beaucoup de gens qui sont sincères sans être simples – Ils ne veulent passer que pour ce qu'ils sont, mais ils craignent sans cesse de passer pour ce qu'ils ne sont pas. L'homme simple n'affecte ni la vertu, ni la vérité même; il n'est jamais occupé de lui, il semble d'avoir perdu ce moi dont on est si jaloux.'"
What delicacy and justness of expression! how true and clear! how little we see now-a-days, among grownup men, of this straightness of the soul – of this losing or never finding "ce moi!" There is more than is perhaps generally thought in this. Man in a state of perfection, would no sooner think of asking himself – am I right? am I appearing to be what inwardly I am? than the eye asks itself – do I see? or a child says to itself – do I love my mother? We have lost this instinctive sense; we have set one portion of ourselves aside to watch the rest; we must keep up appearances and our consistency; we must respect – that is, look back upon – ourselves, and be respected, if possible; we must, by hook or by crook, be respectable.
Dr. Chalmers would have been a sorry Balaam; he was made of different stuff and for other purposes. Your "respectable" men are ever doing their best to keep their status, to maintain their position. He never troubled himself about his status; indeed, we would say status was not the word for him. He had a sedes on which he sat, and from which he spoke; he had an imperium, to and fro which he roamed as he listed: but a status was as little in his way as in that of a Mauritanian lion. Your merely "sincere" men are always thinking of what they said yesterday, and what they may say to-morrow, at the very moment when they should be putting their whole self into to-day. Full of his idea, possessed by it, moved altogether by its power, – believing, he spoke, and without stint or fear, often apparently contradicting his former self – careless about everything, but speaking fully his mind. One other reason for his apparent inconsistencies was, if one may so express it, the spaciousness of his nature. He had room in that capacious head, and affection in that great, hospitable heart, for relishing and taking in the whole range of human thought and feeling. He was several men in one. Multitudinous but not multiplex, in him odd and apparently incongruous notions dwelt peaceably together. The lion lay down with the lamb. Voluntaryism and an endowment – both were best.
He was childlike in his simplicity: though in understanding a man, he was himself in many things a child. Coleridge says, every man should include all his former selves in his present, as a tree has its former years' growths inside its last; so Dr. Chalmers bore along with him his childhood, his youth, his early and full manhood into his mature old age. This gave himself, we doubt not, infinite delight – multiplied his joys, strengthened and sweetened his whole nature, and kept his heart young and tender, – it enabled him to sympathize, to have a fellow- feeling with all, of whatever age. Those who best knew him, who were most habitually with him, know how beautifully this point of his character shone out in daily, hourly life. We well remember long ago loving him before we had seen him – from our having been told, that being out one Saturday at a friend's house near the Pentlands, he collected all the children and small people – the other bairns, as he called them – and with no one else of his own growth, took the lead to the nearest hill-top, – how he made each take the biggest and roundest stone he could find, and carry, – how he panted up the hill himself with one of enormous size, – how he kept up their hearts, and made them shout with glee, with the light of his countenance, and with all his pleasant and strange ways and words, – how having got the breathless little men and women to the top of the hill, he, hot and scant of breath, looked round on the world and upon them with his broad benignant smile like the [Greek] – the unnumbered laughter of the sea, – how he set off his own huge "fellow," – how he watched him setting out on his race, slowly, stupidly, vaguely at first, almost as if he might die before he began to live, then suddenly giving a spring and off like a shot – bounding, tearing, [Greek]; how the great and good man was totus in illo; how he spoke to, upbraided him, cheered him, gloried in him, all but prayed for him, – how he joked philosophy to his wondering and ecstatic crew, when he (the stone) disappeared among some brackens – telling them they had the evidence of their senses that he was in, they might even know he wras there by his effects, by the moving brackens, himself unseen; how plain it became that he had gone in, when he actually came out! – how he ran up the opposite side a bit, and then fell back, and lazily expired at the bottom, – how to their astonishment, but not displeasure – for he "set them off so well," and "was so funny" – he took from each his cherished stone, and set it off himself! showing them how they all ran alike, yet differently; how he went on, "making," as he said, "an induction of particulars," till he came to the Benjamin of the flock, a wee wee man, who had brought up a stone bigger than his own big head; then how he let him, unicus omnium, set off his own, and how wonderfully it ran! what miraculous leaps: what escapes from impossible places: and how it ran up the other side farther than any, and by some felicity remained there.
He was an orator in its specific and highest sense. We need not prove this to those who have heard him; we cannot to those who have not. It was a living man sending living, burning words into the minds and heart of men before him, radiating his intense fervour upon them all; but there was no reproducing the entire effect when alone and cool; some one of the elements was gone. We say nothing of this part of his character, because upon this all are agreed. His eloquence rose like a tide, a sea, setting in, bearing down upon you, lifting up all its waves – "deep calling unto deep there was no doing anything but giving yourself up for the time to its will. Do our readers remember Horace's description of Pindar?
"Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres
Quern super notas aluere ripas,
Fervet immensusque ruit profundo
Pindarus ore:
– "per audaces nova dithyrambos
Verba devolvit, mimerisque fertur
Lege solutis."
This is to our mind singularly characteristic of our per-fervid Scotsman. If we may indulge our conceit, we would paraphrase it thus. His eloquence was like a flooded Scottish river, – it had its origin in some exalted region – in some mountain-truth – some high, immutable reality; it did not rise in a plain, and quietly drain its waters to the sea, – it came sheer down from above. He laid hold of some simple truth – the love of God, the Divine method of justification, the unchangeableness of human nature, the supremacy of conscience, the honourableness of all men; and having got this vividly before his mind, on he moved – the river rose at once, drawing everything into its course —